Silicon Valley Reads plans day at the Computer History Museum

Silicon Valley Reads spends a day at the Computer History Museum on Feb. 15 in keeping with this years's theme, "Books & Technology: Friends or Foes?"

The museum is open for a day of programming beginning at 10 a.m. when visitors are welcome to explore the museum's 20 galleries devoted to the evolution and impact of modern computing.

At 11 a.m., a panel discussion explores "The e-Book Revolution," featuring panelists Mark Corker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, which has published more than 250,000 e-books; Chintu Parikh, founder and CEO of KiteReaders, a platform that creates, markets and distributes children's picture e-books; and Rama Sadasivin, director of content acquisition, Scribd, a subscription service for digital books.

A docent led tour of the museum also takes place at 11 a.m., followed by a demonstration of the Babbage Engine, an automatic computing engine designed 150 years ago, at 1 p.m.

Google and the World Brain, a film about Google's effort to create a giant global library containing every book in existence, will be shown from 1 to 2:30 p.m., Another docent led tour of the museum begins at 2 p.m..

The museum is at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View. The general admission fee of $15 per person is being waived for the Silicon Valley Reads Day at the Computer History Museum. To reserve a free pass, email name and number of guests to SVReads@aol.com. Admission passes can be picked up in the lobby of the museum on Feb. 15 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.